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The Worlds of Ntozake ShangeAND DIGITAL STORYTELLING

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Reading Zake: Vamo Hablar Ingles

by Ortiz 0 Comments

 

As I read for coloured girls by Shange, I was saddened by the idea that I hadn’t found her before. Before, when my curling hair and español didn’t fit in my mouth, didn’t fit in my writing, in my thoughts. When my own identity alienated me from my conceived self, a self that was white-passing (at least in South Jamaica, where white was just skin), and desired a white family and white traditions. As I read Shange, 21 and no longer desiring a white

identity, but desperately clinging to the aspects of my identity that are deeply Latina and give me culture, sabor at Barnard, I am deeply moved by her words. I annotated her work, as pictured, expressing the way my heart stopped when her stanzas did, or when it left me full of something unrecognizable – was it love for myself, or the people I identify with? Shange’s writing is not just feminist writing, it is not just transnational and globalized, it is not just about culture and music and movement, it is about humanity as its core. It is about empathy and love and passion, pain, and healing and for these reasons, for the shared experiences Shange expresses in for coloured girls¸ I am able to tie myself to a story that is not necessarily, explicitly my own.

we deal wit emotion too much

so why don’t we go on ahead & be white then/

& make everythin dry & abstract wit no rhythm & no

reelin for sheer sensual pleasure/ yes let’s go on & be white. (58-59)

— and I wanted to be white, for so long, because, as Shange expresses, maybe being white means not having to address the idea of the woman of color that is too sensitive, too concerned about herself. Maybe this was a way to remove myself from myself? But as Shange states, “bein alive & bein a woman & bein colored is a metaphysical dilemma / i havent conquered yet” (59). Haven’t conquered because I refuse to view myself as separate, fragmented pieces, at least not anymore.

Now, as I read other literary works, I search for myself. I don’t search for a regurgitated image of what others think I am, because I am too complicated, too sanctified, too magic, too music (60-61) to be one thing.

El español de Shange, the reference to the music of my childhood, merengue, immediately reminded me of Fefita’s performance of Vamo Hablar Ingles; watching as a woman dominate a stage, surrounded by music and movement and culture / my culture adopted a new meaning. A song that only in asserting to “hablar ingles” is adopting the same transnational, global connections that Shange evokes, and in a sense, it’s all tied together.

 

 

Reconciling the Necessary and the Real

by Ortiz 1 Comment

In reading The Art of Transformation, I understood the necessity for a unified culture in the
“struggle for freedom,” as described by Collins, but as I continued reading the accounts of individuals at the time, I was conflicted by what they believed to be a necessity in the movement for freedom, and what I believed to be essential in the creation of an individual identity.

“We stress culture because it gives identity, purpose, and direction. It tells you who you are, what you must do, and how you can do it,” – Maulana Ron Karenga

This dependency on a united, practically homogeneous culture for an identity, on the surface appears to be inclusive, a place where those normally excluded from culture can create and find refuge. Yet, I struggled to understand why culture should dictate the entirety of one’s identity, what they “must do” and how to do it. It’s almost restricting the purpose of an identity and culture to something completely political. What must we do, and how do we do it? What are the tactics that we find in this culture, and how do I execute them? This notion of culture and identity has an agenda, and must we embed our entire being into a political purpose, regardless of how badly we need it?

Also, how can one culture, a culture specifically tied to African descent account for the varied, mixed identities that still identify as Black? In takin a solo / a poetic possibility / a poetic imperative by Ntozake Shange, Shange acknowledges how limiting this concept of a homogeneous, unified culture can be.

“that means there is absolutely no acceptance of blk personal reality. If you are 14, female & black in the u.s.a./ you have one solitary voice/ thought you number 3 million/ no nuance exists for you/ you have been sequestered in the monolith/ the common denominator as a persona”

So how do we reconcile the necessity for a black culture without the violent exclusion of so many? Even now in the age of social media, there is an image of black culture that is entirely too narrow, too limiting. How can we repair this rupture between what is necessary and what is real, as Shange addresses in Nappy Edges?

Post #1 — One Bloodstream, Two Inheritances

by Eliana 1 Comment

“I am talking here about a kind of strength which can only be one woman’s gift to another, 

the bloodstream of our inheritance. 

Until a strong line 

of love, 

confirmation, 

and example 

stretches from mother to daughter, 

from woman to woman across the generations, 

women will still be wandering in the wilderness.” (246)

 

My arrangement of the lines forces the reader to meditate on the importance of intergenerational love, confirmation, and example paved by a unified line of women throughout time. The breath also shifts the reader’s attention to the power of this intergenerational mothering line being a strong one — which is what spoke to me about the passage as a whole. 

 

In my case, I’ve received the gift Rich describes here twofold. Of Woman Born helped me understand why, throughout most of my life, I’ve considered having two moms to be a superpower. The inherited gift of strength, passed down to me from both of my parents, has allowed me to become my own hero. My mothers, both born in the 1950’s, gifted me this strength after decades of struggling with the “institutionalized heterosexuality” (218) identified by Rich, coping with the reality of starting a unified life as religious queer women. My mothers both follow the paths of the “unmothered” (243) as described by Rich, having lived most of their lives without their own mothers. This path is one of pain turned fortitude, throughout their motherless process of coming out and building their own family, after the birth of my sibling in 1994. Thus, they carry with them both hardship and immense courage which stretches proudly from mother(s) to daughter. My line of generational inheritance may not be as refined as Rich describes, but it’s just as unified and just as strong. This line comes from both of my mothers, and it’s for me to pass on to my daughters and their daughters. 

 

My mothers treat their title as “mother,” fittingly, like most queens treat their crowns. If ever I refer to one of my parents by their name instead of “mom” or “mommy,” I know I’ll be met with the same do you know how hard I worked to become your mother? that I know all too well, and have grown to love. The labor being described here is not that of pregnancy, suggested by Rich, but the labor of facing intolerance. This is a way in which Rich and I divert. In my poetic rewrite of the quote, the breath and spacing I chose pair bloodstream and inheritance, placing them in an unexpected juxtaposition; my inheritance has little to do with my bloodstream but it’s still strong. I disagree with the notion that “probably there is nothing in human nature more resonant with charges than the flow of energy between two biologically alike bodies.” (225) Much of what runs through my inherited bloodstream is unknown; anonymous donor #138 may have given me wide brown eyes, but it was my mothers who taught me to see. They taught me to love through the greatest process of confirmation and example – greater than I could have imagined.

My Take “On National Culture”- Samaha Blogpost One

by Hossain 1 Comment

“On National Culture” 

“The native intellectual nevertheless sooner or later will realize that

you do not

Shaheed Minar in Bangladesh erected in honor of the Language Movement

show proof of your nation from its culture, 

but that you substantiate its existence

in the fight, which the people wage,

against the forces, of occupation.

No colonial system draws its justification from the fact that the territories are

culturally non-existent.

You will never make colonialism blush

for shame, by spreading out little-known cultural treasures, under its eyes.

 

what he [the native intellectual] ultimately intends to embrace are

in fact, the castoffs of thought,

Women resisting during the Bengali Liberation War in 1971

its shells, 

and corpses, a knowledge

which has been stabilized once and for

all.

 

he must go

on until he has found the seething pot–

of which the learning of,

the future will emerge” 

(Fanon, 223 and 225).

For this week’s blog post, I chose Frantz Fanon’s piece, “On National Culture.” It stood out to me because it seemed to have a lot in tandem with what Shange was writing about in “my pen is a machete.” Throughout her piece, she was writing to dismantle the oppressive imposition of the English language unto Black people and those oppressed within the United States, which was evident in the way she chose to spell her words and use breaks that felt familiar to her. Fanon had similar feelings as he continually expressed his discontent with colonial efforts to erase national identities. He suggests that the cultural identity of a nation emerges after its liberation. From my understanding, he poses liberation as distancing one’s  identity from European hegemonic entanglement. He also suggests that searching for an identity solely connected with one’s ancestry and past, may leave one feeling unfulfilled in the present. Thus, he suggests that breaking free from these binary thoughts may foster a new national and cultural identity.

The excerpt I chose to rearrange into a poem delineates these three phases that he speaks in a beautiful way, while depicting the struggle and the extent needed to combat the oppression of not just the English language and art, but European impositions upon colonized people. I inserted a picture of Bangladeshi women carrying guns and protesting during the Bengali Liberation War in 1971. This example resonates with me and this post because it exemplifies radical protest and revolution against the colonial Pakistani rule during that time. I think that it also connects back to Shange’s readings for this week because the liberation war grew out of the Bengali language movement, during which, Bengalis fought for their mother tongue, under Pakistani rule. Thus, all of these moments in history coincide in the way that they struggle and radicalize around an identity and against an oppressive, often, colonial force. This is meaningful to me because as someone non-white born in America and having never visited my mother country, I sometimes debate the politics of  my belonging in the U.S. I think Shange’s rearrangement and ownership of the English language to serve her work is radical and inspiring, and it is a direction towards continuing decolonial projects. Her pen is her machete, and I await to find my own.

TBD on Feminist Affiliation

by Perry O'Parsons 3 Comments

Before taking this class, my understanding of feminism was vague and mostly based on a white conception of feminism. Now as I am expanding my understanding of feminism, and different kinds of feminisms, and learning to look critically at the kind of feminism I was first introduced to, I find myself at the beginning of my development as feminist.

For now I am hesitant to identify myself specifically. As I am not a woman of color, I can recognize myself as an ally of WOC Feminist, Womanist, Asian/American feminist,  Latinx feminist etc but do not specifically identify with those groups. However, I certainly wouldn’t identify with the racist, exclusive, feminist groups that held (and still often hold) control of the public discourse over feminism. For now, this leads me to identify myself, not with a specific group, but with a role. For now I would identify as an ally to all my fellow feminists and a student of the various types of feminism. Each type of feminism is a practice of ideals, morals, beliefs etc. I must learn about and form my own practices before I appraise them and relegate myself to one or multiple groups.

 

I added this because I think this quote perfectly articulates the type of ideals I want to support, no matter what group I align myself with.